Pass the Pub Test and we’ll talk ...

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The Pub Test is likely to loom large in the lives of future Serious Fraud
Office employees. This is not some ghastly initiation ceremony but rather
the examination any future attempted prosecution brought by the agency must
undergo.

It is that, if a case cannot be explained to friends over a drink, it should
not be put before a jury. The investigation into the collapse of the
Icelandic bank Kaupthing, which was discontinued yesterday, would plainly
not have passed such a test. Indeed, senior officers at the SFO claim it is
unclear whether there was ever a case to begin